Poems by Emily Dickinson, Third Series

MABEL LOOMIS TODD

 
    It's all I have to bring to-day,
      This, and my heart beside,
    This, and my heart, and all the fields,
      And all the meadows wide.
    Be sure you count, should I forget, —
      Some one the sum could tell, —
    This, and my heart, and all the bees
      Which in the clover dwell.
 

PREFACE

The intellectual activity of Emily Dickinson was so great that a large and characteristic choice is still possible among her literary material, and this third volume of her verses is put forth in response to the repeated wish of the admirers of her peculiar genius. Much of Emily Dickinson's prose was rhythmic, —even rhymed, though frequently not set apart in lines.

Also many verses, written as such, were sent to friends in letters; these were published in 1894, in the volumes of her Letters. It has not been necessary, however, to include them in this Series, and all have been omitted, except three or four exceptionally strong ones, as "A Book," and "With Flowers."

There is internal evidence that many of the poems were simply spontaneous flashes of insight, apparently unrelated to outward circumstance. Others, however, had an obvious personal origin; for example, the verses "I had a Guinea golden," which seem to have been sent to some friend travelling in Europe, as a dainty reminder of letter-writing delinquencies. The surroundings in which any of Emily Dickinson's verses are known to have been written usually serve to explain them clearly; but in general the present volume is full of thoughts needing no interpretation to those who apprehend this scintillating spirit.

M. L. T.

AMHERST, October, 1896.

I. LIFE

POEMS

I.
REAL RICHES

 
'T is little I could care for pearls
  Who own the ample sea;
Or brooches, when the Emperor
  With rubies pelteth me;
 
 
Or gold, who am the Prince of Mines;
  Or diamonds, when I see
A diadem to fit a dome
  Continual crowning me.
 

II.
SUPERIORITY TO FATE

 
Superiority to fate
  Is difficult to learn.
'T is not conferred by any,
  But possible to earn
 
 
A pittance at a time,
  Until, to her surprise,
The soul with strict economy
  Subsists till Paradise.
 

III.
HOPE

 
Hope is a subtle glutton;
  He feeds upon the fair;
And yet, inspected closely,
  What abstinence is there!
 
 
His is the halcyon table
  That never seats but one,
And whatsoever is consumed
  The same amounts remain.
 

IV.
FORBIDDEN FRUIT

I

 
Forbidden fruit a flavor has
  That lawful orchards mocks;
How luscious lies the pea within
  The pod that Duty locks!
 

V.
FORBIDDEN FRUIT

II

 
Heaven is what I cannot reach!
  The apple on the tree,
Provided it do hopeless hang,
  That 'heaven' is, to me.
 
 
The color on the cruising cloud,
  The interdicted ground
Behind the hill, the house behind, —
  There Paradise is found!
 

VI.
A WORD

 
A word is dead
When it is said,
  Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
  That day.
 

VII

 
To venerate the simple days
  Which lead the seasons by,
Needs but to remember
  That from you or me
They may take the trifle
  Termed mortality!
 
 
To invest existence with a stately air,
Needs but to remember
  That the acorn there
Is the egg of forests
  For the upper air!
 

VIII.
LIFE'S TRADES

 
It's such a little thing to weep,
  So short a thing to sigh;
And yet by trades the size of these
  We men and women die!
 

IX

 
Drowning is not so pitiful
  As the attempt to rise.
Three times, 't is said, a sinking man
  Comes up to face the skies,
And then declines forever
  To that abhorred abode
Where hope and he part company, —
  For he is grasped of God.
The Maker's cordial visage,
  However good to see,
Is shunned, we must admit it,
  Like an adversity.
 

X

 
How still the bells in steeples stand,
  Till, swollen with the sky,
They leap upon their silver feet
  In frantic melody!
 

XI

 
If the foolish call them 'flowers,'
  Need the wiser tell?
If the savans 'classify' them,
  It is just as well!
 
 
Those who read the Revelations
  Must not criticise
Those who read the same edition
  With beclouded eyes!
 
 
Could we stand with that old Moses
  Canaan denied, —
Scan, like him, the stately landscape
  On the other side, —
 
 
Doubtless we should deem superfluous
  Many sciences
Not pursued by learnèd angels
  In scholastic skies!
 
 
Low amid that glad Belles lettres
  Grant that we may stand,
Stars, amid profound Galaxies,
  At that grand 'Right hand'!
 

XII.
A SYLLABLE

 
Could mortal lip divine
  The undeveloped freight
Of a delivered syllable,
  'T would crumble with the weight.
 

XIII.
PARTING

 
My life closed twice before its close;
  It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
  A third event to me,
 
 
So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
  As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
  And all we need of hell.
 

XIV.
ASPIRATION

 
We never know how high we are
  Till we are called to rise;
And then, if we are true to plan,
  Our statures touch the skies.
 
 
The heroism we recite
  Would be a daily thing,
Did not ourselves the cubits warp
  For fear to be a king.
 

XV.
THE INEVITABLE

 
While I was fearing it, it came,
  But came with less of fear,
Because that fearing it so long
  Had almost made it dear.
There is a fitting a dismay,
  A fitting a despair.
'Tis harder knowing it is due,
  Than knowing it is here.
The trying on the utmost,
  The morning it is new,
Is terribler than wearing it
  A whole existence through.
 

XVI.
A BOOK

 
There is no frigate like a book
  To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
  Of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take
  Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
  That bears a human soul!
 

XVII

 
Who has not found the heaven below
  Will fail of it above.
God's residence is next to mine,
  His furniture is love.
 

XVIII.
A PORTRAIT

 
A face devoid of love or grace,
  A hateful, hard, successful face,
A face with which a stone
  Would feel as thoroughly at ease
As were they old acquaintances, —
  First time together thrown.
 

XIX.
I HAD A GUINEA GOLDEN

 
I had a guinea golden;
  I lost it in the sand,
And though the sum was simple,
  And pounds were in the land,
Still had it such a value
  Unto my frugal eye,
That when I could not find it
  I sat me down to sigh.
 
 
I had a crimson robin
  Who sang full many a day,
But when the woods were painted
  He, too, did fly away.
Time brought me other robins, —
  Their ballads were the same, —
Still for my missing troubadour
  I kept the 'house at hame.'
 
 
I had a star in heaven;
  One Pleiad was its name,
And when I was not heeding
  It wandered from the same.
And though the skies are crowded,
  And all the night ashine,
I do not care about it,
  Since none of them are mine.
 
 
My story has a moral:
  I have a missing friend, —
Pleiad its name, and robin,
  And guinea in the sand, —
And when this mournful ditty,
  Accompanied with tear,
Shall meet the eye of traitor
  In country far from here,
Grant that repentance solemn
  May seize upon his mind,
And he no consolation
  Beneath the sun may find.
 

NOTE. – This poem may have had, like many others, a personal origin. It is more than probable that it was sent to some friend travelling in Europe, a dainty reminder of letter-writing delinquencies.

 

XX.
SATURDAY AFTERNOON

 
From all the jails the boys and girls
  Ecstatically leap, —
Beloved, only afternoon
  That prison doesn't keep.
 
 
They storm the earth and stun the air,
  A mob of solid bliss.
Alas! that frowns could lie in wait
  For such a foe as this!